The Antidote
by Soujinesque
Summary: Sherlock realises that John's relationship with Sarah is a distinct threat to his well-being, and goes on a mission to keep John with him. One-sided John/Sherlock.
1. Chapter 1

**The Antidote, part I**

Sherlock doesn't do things without purpose.

(Not a lie, even on the worst days, when he's so bored, so pressed in by boredom, that it feels as though the long noodly bits in his brain are crawling around restlessly and pushing against the sides of his skull like blind foetal kittens, trying to feel their way out. Not a lie, because even when he's pinching John's gun and blowing holes in the couch he's testing angles and velocities and unlikelihoods. Not a lie because he never learns without intention - Earth around the sodding sun, not sodding logical, completely counter-intuitive and not worth the intuition anyway - he never makes an experiment without some kind of testable hypotheses to act as racecourse to a wild theory bucking down the track.)

(Experiment #2377:21: observe effects of alcohol on ability to navigate familiar arenas. Hypothesis: excessive consumption of alcohol will impair subject's ability to get from Scotland Yard to 221B, up the stairs, and into the bedroom. N.B.: purpose of experiment should focus less on proving hypothesis or null (hypothesis obviously correct), more on positive and negative effects of hypothesis and how they present.

Results: Hypothesis proven (obviously). Effects include disorientation, dislocation of centre of balance, difficulty in judging personal limits, impairment in ability to avoid puddles or make decisions regarding wisdom of avoiding puddles, inability to get home in under two hours due to excessive distractibility, inability find the sodding keyhole once home, inability to make sodding tea, and severe depression due to sedative effects of alcohol.

N.B.: experiment should not be replicated, wore John's pyjamas to bed, now smell like him.*)

*not that John doesn't smell good, because he does, Sherlock is well aware that he does, but Sherlock has a Sherlock smell and that should not be interfered with, not even with a John smell. Besides, John complained - in fact, woke him up complaining, and, when he realised Sherlock had a hangover, made him drink something devastatingly unpleasant with raw egg in it and then rattled on and on about how astonished he was that Sherlock should have been drinking to begin with, as if he were perfectly unaware that it was an experiment. Which he couldn't have been, because as dull and blind as ordinary, John-like people are, they at least have to understand _science_.

Having his smell interfered with left Sherlock sulking on the couch all afternoon, trying to get the taste of raw egg out of his mouth and not realising that he was wearing John's cardigan until half past six when John came home from work and brought in the takeaway.)

John stands in the doorway with his hands full of plastic grocery bags and says, "This has really gone too far."

Sherlock rolls over to look at him. '"What?"

"You're wearing my clothes. Again."

"Your clothes were in my area."

"Your _area_."

"You neglected to put them out of my way."

"Don't make this my responsibility - "

"It is." He sits up. "Food. Now."

John throws one of the cartons at him, and Sherlock smiles at it. Food always settles in the trip from the Indian restaurant to the flat, but hurtling through the air and landing neatly in his hands will have shaken it up nicely.

(Irritating John is essential to his mode of living, almost as essential as knowing that John will cease to be irritated after a while and subside back into his usual self, available and as attentive as ordinary people can be. Sherlock has determined, via Experiment #2370:21, that he lives better with John there to pick up the groceries and the takeaway and to do the laundry and to worry about keeping the flat in order while Sherlock does the vital things like the experiments and the thinking. He isn't overly concerned with whether or not John thinks; his assumption is that John does, sometimes, at a lower speed and with less intensity. But that's not the point. John does the things Sherlock can't get done.*

*Not that he would admit it to John, but the hums of the refrigerator and laundry machines and the low whisper of the gas stove make his skin twitch, and the trouble with thinking all the time, and with bad days when the boredom wants to fill his nose and mouth until he suffocates, is that ordinary John-like things elude him, frustrate him, until he's breaking dishes and acting entirely without purpose in an effort to push out of the amniotic sac of boredom and clear his eyes and suck in a breath of genuine dirty London air - )

He sits perfectly still with the carton on his lap, cradling the warmth of tandoori and trying very carefully and calmly to breathe. He needs John. That much is evident. Infuriating, at times, but evident.

"Look, I'm going out with Sarah to-night," John says. Sherlock's head comes up at once.

"Going out with Sarah?"

"Yeah, unlike some people I like to have the occasional night out that isn't spent down at the morgue beating dead bodies and ruining other people's lives."

That's nastier than is usual for John, even when he's piqued, so Sherlock supposes this business with the cardigan must matter more than makes any sense at all. "Now, now," he says. "I didn't ruin anyone's life. I prevented her from attaching herself romantically to an antisocial personality disorder. A gay one."

John's expression is reproachful.

Sherlock sighs irritably and taps his fork on his knee. "Don't wake me when you get in."

John slams the grocery bag into the recycling bin, puts his jacket on as roughly as possible, stuffs his wallet into his back pocket with a great deal more force than is necessary, and stomps down the stairs. Sherlock leans back against the couch and eats his tandoori.

(Experiment #2379:21: whether it is possible to negotiate the termination of flatmate's relationship while keeping intact one's own relationship with flatmate. Hypothesis: never mind the sodding hypothesis. Must keep John here.)

When John gets home at quarter past midnight, Sherlock has carefully arranged himself across the sofa. There are three nicotine patches on his arm, artistically positioned, two empty bottles of Penderyn - one upright on the coffee table, the other in the crook of his arm - and he himself is sprawled in his bathrobe, watching John from under nearly closed eyelids. He wasn't sure whether two bottles might be pushing it rather, but he does want to be convincing. With any luck John won't assume he's dead of blood alcohol poisoning and just call the hospital right off the bat.

John stops humming at once. "Sherlock."

No answer.

"Oh, dear Christ-" in that harassed, anxious tone John gets, and Sherlock closes his eyes all the way quickly as John kneels down by the couch, checking the speed of his pulse (probably to determine the extent of alcoholic sedation) while saying, louder, "Sherlock. Damn it. Are you OK? Can you hear me?"

Sherlock lets his head bob forward lazily, cracking his eyes open. "John?" Perfect. It almost makes up for the fact that his mouth tastes disgusting from gargling Penderyn fifteen minutes earlier, as well as the fact that it's going to take at least two washes to get the smell of the whisky out of his bathrobe.

"Oh, Jesus." John half-rises, one arm around Sherlock's shoulders to support him. "Two bottles? I hope you spilled most of it. Are you all right? Why the hell are you drinking like this?"

Sherlock starts to answer, but his sharp eyes have noted the hint of lipstick on John's collar, the way his hair doesn't settle exactly right, the flush in his cheeks that can't be attributed to the slight autumn chill outside, and he plunges forward, angling his body with great expertise and falling like the dead weight a dead-drunk man becomes. It's perfect. John is pinned neatly to the floor, and despite the fact that Sherlock is certainly the lighter of the two men, he makes no move to struggle away. Sherlock braces himself ineffectually on his elbows. "John." Breathless, but bleary at the same time.

"Yeah?" John's voice sounds strained with effort, and it actually takes Sherlock off-guard - he knows his weight shouldn't be enough to actually hurt John, and he almost abandons his experiment to be sure there isn't some outside variable he should be aware of. Then he realises that his abdomen is pressed against John's hips and groin, and that John is extraordinarily hard.

Oh, sod it. Outside variables indeed. He decides this is the best time to draw a curtain on the experiment, and lets out a soft sigh, falling prone.

John's hands grip his shoulders, rolling him back, and he feels John sit up, panting. "Oh, Jesus. You bastard." Then John lifts him up, half-carrying half-dragging him into his room, and settles him in the bed, getting him out of his stinking bathrobe and covering him gently. Sherlock even feels John stroke his hair for a moment.

As soon as he's out of the room, Sherlock springs up and goes silently to the door, following the sound of little moans and more panting to the loo, where he determines based on auditory data that John is getting himself off. Sod it _all_.

Shamming drunk and getting John to worry by utilising the fact that he already feels guilty about his sister is one thing, but shamming drunk and getting John to worry by utilising the fact that he already feels guilty about his sister _and_ he wants to shag Sherlock is another thing entirely. Sherlock gets a little cold tea out of the fridge and takes it back to his room, sipping it in bed while he considers how to restructure the experiment. Outside, he hears John open and close the bathroom door, then get ready for bed. Perhaps he should kill Sarah. She isn't particularly important to him, and it would be diverting to work out a police case around her disappearance. Perhaps he could implicate Mycroft.

That thought amuses him so much that he actually smiles as he puts his teacup on the nightstand and turns off the light.

(He dreams that Sarah, he, and Mycroft sit down in a little triangle of armchairs, whereupon Mycroft explains that Sherlock has become co-dependent on John and it's just as well John has some interests elsewhere. Then Mycroft says he has a new case for Sherlock, one that will be better than anything else he could possibly imagine, much better than some ordinary person-he makes one of those hideous faces Mycroft always makes, twisting his mouth and eyes into something grotesque when he smiles.

Then Sarah says, "He'll only distract you."

Sherlock folds one long leg over the other, loosens his scarf, and clasps his thin fingers together on his lap. "He doesn't distract me. He makes my life far more facile."

Mycroft sneers. "Imagine what you could have got done to-night if you hadn't been lolling around on the couch with whisky all over your clothes."

"I would have been bored. He keeps me from being bored."

"Nothing can keep you from being bored. You're always bored, you're always going to be bored."

"Incorrect."

Sarah, rather irritatingly, says, "Then you should do something to tell him how much he means to you."

"Why in God's name would I do that?"

"Because _I_ do. He's a soldier - he's used to hearing 'good man' when he's done a job well."

"Oh, I say that to him all the time."

"No, you don't."

Mycroft leans forward. "Take the case."

"No, I won't. Good-night." Sherlock reaches up and turns off the light that's beside his armchair all of a sudden. He doesn't feel satisfied, but at least it shuts Mycroft up.)

(Experiment #2379:21: Results: Experiment proved untenable. Processing new data and proceeding with Experiment #2380:21.

Experiment #2380:21: devise solution for problem of flatmate's probable sexual inclination towards self. N.B.: no more alcohol, had to drink another ghastly raw egg beverage in a.m., unacceptable. Alcohol is out.)

Sherlock finds the armchair from his dream and settles into it, frowning at the wall opposite. John is in the kitchen, and Sherlock plays the game of identifying which board John's stepping on, which is diverting for all of two and a half minutes before he has to throw a tantrum. He jumps up and grabs the poker, and John must be getting attuned to his movements as well because he's in the room in a moment, his hands covered with raw meat from preparing supper, trying to work the poker out of Sherlock's grip.

"Oh, come on, you've given me enough trouble to-day."

"I haven't been any trouble at all."

"Bollocks. You're trying to put a hole in the wall, you haven't spoken to me all day because I cured your bloody hangover, and last night you were drunk again and won't tell me why. Let _go_," he adds, wrenching the poker away.

Sherlock folds his arms. "I need you here, you go out too much."

"I have a _job_."

"I have to type my own texts."

John's lips tighten.

Sherlock sighs angrily and flexes his fingers around the emptiness where the poker used to be, and frowns, furrowing his eyebrows, trying to come up with a way to tell John he needs him to work the stove without somehow offending him. In the end, though, he throws down his hands angrily and says, "Will you stop thinking at me, I can't think when you won't shut up! You're the only person who doesn't bore me and I traded away a perfectly good case for you, so for once just please shut the hell up and let me concentrate!"

(Not a lie, even if it was a dream, because in his heart of hearts he is illogically convinced that he could have taken Mycroft's case. The trouble is that even if Mycroft is right and he is co-dependent (which he isn't), even if John would rather be in bed with him (a prospect that Sherlock has never entertained and of which he doesn't understand the appeal), even if John is a distraction - he is better than nicotine patches, and Sherlock needs him.

Because otherwise it's just going to be him in this flat, listening to the appliances hum and trying to block out the boredom between cases.)

John is staring at him open-mouthed, and Sherlock snaps, "What do you want?"

"I don't bore you?"

"No, no, I like you," he says, exasperated - he doesn't want dream-Sarah to be right, and it occurs to him that it's possible to say 'I like you' without adding 'because sometimes I do experiments on you while you're sleeping, and I'm tolerably glad you didn't wake up during #2204:21 or #2357:21'.

"You like me?"

"I already know what I said, you don't need to keep telling it to me. Go wash your hands, you're getting beef juice all over the poker."

"All right," John says, sounding dazed, and goes back into the kitchen - although not, Sherlock notes, giving him back the poker. He follows John. The kitchen looks as though a food pantry has detonated in it, or rather a food pantry combined with a crime lab, and he rescues one of his saucers of bone marrow from where it is perilously close to being confused with the dish of marmalade.

He sets it carefully on his knee as he takes one of the kitchen chairs. It's possible, he realises, that taking advantage of John is precisely the way to solve this problem, and has been all along. This would really be no different from performing experiments on John while he's asleep. Probably better.

"John," he says.

John turns immediately, leaving the tap running.

And Sherlock, without thinking, entirely without purpose, says, "Good man."

John smiles. "Thanks."

Oh, sod all.

(Experiment #2380:21: Results: Failure. Failure, failure, failure.)

After supper Sherlock takes his saucer of bone marrow and barricades himself in his room. The facts, he reasons, are these: 1) that he wants John to be his, exclusively, at least when he needs him; 2) that John would like to shag him; 3) that John is choosing to try and shag Sarah in lieu of Sherlock; 4) that Sherlock himself is behaving with complete irrationality, because the perfectly reasonable solution is to allow John to shag him, which would lure him away from Sarah and ensure that he remained in 221B.

But somehow it seems unfair, and Sherlock stares reproachfully at the bone marrow.

It doesn't stare back.

(Experiment #2381:21: leave John alone and let him make his own choices.

Ha, ha, ha.)

He listens to John moving around in the flat outside his door and sets the saucer carefully on his bedside table next to the empty teacup.

He _will_ work this out. It'll just take a little more time than usual.

Sherlock takes a notepad out from under his pillow and writes neatly,

_Experiment #2382:21: devise suitable alternative to shagging whereby flatmate will consent to remain in flat indefinitely. N.B.: do not take further advice from dreams, particularly dreams consisting of competition for flatmate and one's nemesis._

Then he puts out the light and lies back, hands behind his head. He'll want to take back the poker to-morrow and hide it for himself before John gets the chance, otherwise he's never going to see it again.

[end part one]


	2. Chapter 2

**The Antidote, part II**

In the morning, Sherlock doesn't bother getting out of bed until after John has gone to work at the clinic. In fact, he doesn't bother getting out of bed at all. There's nothing to work on besides the John problem, and he can do that from where he is, so he lies there looking up at the ceiling and trying to work it out. He doesn't like interpersonal problems: they're so messy. The variables, being people - wretched ordinary people - refuse to act consistently. A saucer of bone marrow will always be a saucer of bone marrow, at least until it decomposes sufficiently and can be incorporated into Experiment #2399:21, but people decide one day that they feel one way and then change their minds the next for absolutely no reason at all and throw off all his calculations.

Sherlock doesn't actually realise that he's been in bed all day until it occurs to him that John has been standing in the door for at least fifteen minutes and he looks over at him finally.

"What?"

"Have you eaten?"

"Why should I eat? I'm busy."

"You're just lying there."

"I'm working."

"You know what? I'm going to do it your way. Here's why you should eat. When you lie there thinking, there's brain activity going on. Brain activity takes calories, and if you don't get the proper amount, as measured in intake through food, it'll shut down and you won't be able to think properly. How's that?"

Sherlock waves a hand at him. "You're standing in my thinking area. Move back. And shut the door."

John shakes his head and goes, but he doesn't shut the door.

It occurs to Sherlock in another hour or so that John hasn't brought him supper yet, and frankly that's unusual. So he finally gets out of bed, wrapping his bathrobe around him, and drags himself out into the kitchen, feeling quite ready to throw another tantrum.

John isn't in the kitchen. Nor is he anywhere else in the flat, and Sherlock snatches up his violin bow, tapping out an irritable staccato on the bookcase.

(He has a right to be bothered. John doesn't go places without telling him, other than work, and when Sherlock expects him to pick things up from the store, which John generally does reliably: he's getting better at anticipating what Sherlock's going to want, thank God. But when John gets back from work he always starts supper, unless he's going out with Sarah, in which case he brings takeaway home with him, and even then he informs Sherlock first, so Sherlock knows why to be annoyed when he puts out his hand for something and it doesn't immediately appear.

He has a perfect right to be bothered.)

(Experiment #2383:21: How much force must be applied to a book-binding with the bow of a violin before it bursts? Materials and methods: P&H 4/4 Size Premium Brazilwood violin bow, leather-bound copy of _Forensic Entomology: Arthropods and Corpses, Vol. 2_.

Results - )

Before the book-binding even begins to lighten in colour, Sherlock is interrupted by John opening the door to the flat.

"Where have you been?" Sherlock demands.

"It's none of your business," John says. He's using the piqued tone again, and Sherlock frowns at him.

"You didn't bring me supper."

"Oh, for God's sake, Sherlock. It's not my job to feed you."

"I didn't say it was. I said you didn't bring me my supper - that is an observation, entirely different. Why not?"

"Because I was out walking," John says, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"Instead of making supper."

"Look, when I ran back here from Sarah's because I thought you'd been blown up, you didn't even care. Why does it suddenly matter where I was to-night?"

"You lectured me about eating and then didn't make supper."

"I suppose I thought you could make it yourself."

"No, you didn't. You know I don't like the stove."

John frowns. "I thought it was the Frigidaire - "

"It's both," Sherlock says shortly. John is being obtuse on purpose, he decides.

"How did you eat before I moved in?"

"Mrs. Hudson brought up a tray."

"That's ridiculous. Can you cook?"

"Of course I can, if I have a need."

"What have you ever actually cooked?"

Sherlock gives _Forensic Entomology: Arthropods and Corpses, Vol. 2_ a swift crack with the violin bow, which achieves the dual purpose of alleviating his annoyance to a minuscule degree and stalling for time. Sod all.

"Fish and chips," he says finally.

"You cook fish and chips," John says flatly.

"Yes. It's remarkably simple."

"Sherlock - "

"I don't need to cook!" Sherlock snaps. "You do it. Why should I? It doesn't make any sense to do things that someone else can do. It's my job to do the thinking, since you obviously don't devote any time to that. As long as you're here and you can do cooking sufficiently, why in heaven's name should I?"

"So I'm the live-in help?"

Sherlock snaps the violin bow against the book again. Experiment #2383:21 may come off after all.

(But what's wrong with being the live-in help, really? It's bad enough that he's admitted to himself that he needs John; is he going to have to tell John as well? The point is that John fulfils a need, and that should be good enough, frankly. The things John does bore Sherlock to death, and if he had to do them himself, the noise from the appliances would be beside the point, because the absolute banality of having to launder the sheets and sweep the floor and make sure the bath isn't growing any more interesting moulds would make him bore a hole into his head with the twenty-five bit drill he occasionally uses in cases. All those things have to be _done_, of course, but Sherlock also has to organise his collection of blood spills on different types of household fabric and carry out the Experiments and track the changes in the eyeballs in the microwave so he has an accurate record of how the human eye decomposes in water. He doesn't have _time_ for the things John does.

Frankly John should be flattered that Sherlock trusts him not to make an absolute mess of all the things he does. Sherlock wouldn't trust just anyone. He didn't trust Mrs. Hudson to do a good number of the things he lets John do.

This whole situation is so stupid it makes his head hurt, in that small place behind his eye that occasionally twitches whenever Anderson opens his mouth, but in a moment of pure clarity Sherlock settles upon the one thing that is most necessary in the world.)

"Make tea," he says.

John turns away and stomps into the kitchen.

Tea is not, in and of itself, the solution to everything, but it is a reasonable substitute, and he knows putting the kettle on always calms John down, so it will certainly be a step in the right direction. Sherlock follows him, tapping the violin bow against his thigh thoughtfully.

He waits without saying anything while John puts on the kettle and gets out the mugs, milk and sugar. Finally, to his surprise, it's John who breaks the silence.

"I just wanted to get out and think. I called it off with Sarah to-day."

"What?"

"You mean you didn't deduce that?" John measures out exactly 75 ml of milk to put in Sherlock's mug. "It's why I was late coming home from the clinic."

"You took her out for coffee," Sherlock says. "You bought two cups, but neither of you drank any. You told her you were calling it off and she said she thought that was all right. She's been attracted to someone else but she felt guilty letting you know, and she was afraid you'd take it badly, so this was a relief. You were also relieved, but you don't think you should be. You came home late, found me still in bed, were offended when we argued, and went out to sulk." He can feel the heady rush of delight in knowing exactly what John has been doing, and in being able to do so; at first he tries to keep his expression neutral, but a thin smile slips out in spite of him. "You want to say something pithy and kiss me, but you can't think of anything to say, and that's just as well, because you aren't as clever as you think you are and if you kiss me I shall be irritated, because you stopped at the pub while you were out and you'll taste of Guinness, and quite frankly I despise Guinness."

John has stopped doing anything with the tea things and is staring at him, half open-mouthed. "What - no, I don't! I mean, want to kiss you. Who'd want to kiss you? How the hell d'you know all this, anyway?"

"Sugar on your sweater, no coffee on your breath, your handkerchief hasn't been used so she didn't cry, you brought the bottlecap to your beer home with you and put it down on the counter with your change when you walked in, and you've wanted to kiss me since you came home and found me on the couch."

"...I need another Guinness."

"Oh, _God_, don't start that, as if you want to give yourself one of those sodding hangovers and have someone feed you raw eggs until your eyes cross." Sherlock sighs impatiently. He's annoyed with himself now, honestly, because John's called it off with Sarah, so the solution would have been straightforward enough - appreciate his luck and not bring up the distasteful question of shagging, and who wants to do it with whom. He's overplayed his hand in wanting to show off to John. He's going to pay for it, too. Especially the way John's looking at him now, an apology already on the tip of his tongue - of course it's an apology.

"Sherlock, I'm sorry - "

"Oh, come on! Do something I can't guess! Dance around the kitchen and put the salad bowl on your head, but don't say you're sorry!"

John covers his face with one hand, laughing.

"There you are, was that so difficult?" Sherlock says, unable to keep the sulky tone out of his voice.

"I'm sorry," John says, softly. "What makes you think it started since the night you were drunk?"

"Because - " Sherlock pauses. "How long?"

"Since I moved in."

"Why would you do that?"

"Well, I - "

"Boring." Sherlock looks at John in wonder. He can't help it, really. "It's all so dull and petty. Like, love, lust, it's all the same thing, it's careless and messy and distracts you from everything relevant. Why are you wasting your time?"

"Because you're worth it, I suppose." He finishes with Sherlock's tea and hands him the mug. "There you are."

Sherlock takes it, cupping it in both hands, and drinks it hot; he prefers it to scald his tongue. "I'm worth it."

"I think so, yes."

"Ordinarily I would deduce that a man who says something of that nature is hoping for sexual favours."

John looks down. "Yes, well. That might be your deduction - "

"But it's not your intent."

"Look, this isn't about sleeping with you," John says fiercely, looking up again. "I called it off with Sarah because it wasn't fair to her, and you're right, there was somebody else, and her heart wasn't broken, and I didn't mean as much to her as I supposed. And I do like you, but nothing's going to happen, is it? And that's fine, that's why I wasn't going to say anything about it until you started in with this 'I can tell you want to kiss me' business. I mean, if you wanted to, I'd want to do a lot more than kiss you, but you don't, you're Mr. Married to His Work and that's how it is. I should probably move out, but I don't want to, I don't like living by myself, and you make it impossible to get any real work done but that's all right with me. I can manage. Although I suppose it's a good thing I _do_ fancy you so much, because otherwise I might have thrown it in with you, too, after you woke me up at four in the morning to fetch milk when I was on call for the clinic." He pauses for a breath, and Sherlock smiles, thin lips thinning out further.

"Oh, yes, that does bother you, doesn't it? The milk."

"This isn't about the milk!"

"So you're going to stay?"

John sighs and shrugs. "Yes, if you don't mind." Sherlock thinks he can detect a faint hint of 'your highness' in John's tone, but that hint is there a good eighty per cent of the time and he never pays much attention to it.

"Good. I want you to stay."

"Really?"

"Yes."

John smiles, but he doesn't seem happy, and he turns away and walks out of the kitchen. Sherlock frowns after him, leaning on the counter to finish his tea.

(This should be the end of it. Everything should be all right now. Sarah is gone, she isn't a threat to him any more, and John is planning to stay, so what on earth is the matter? Experiment concluded. But there's something out of place, and it bothers him, in the same way boredom bothers him, in a blunting, stupefying sort of way. His nose and mouth feel clogged with it. Something's wrong.

God, is he going to have to kiss John? He doesn't want to kiss John. It's all very well to know that it's what John wants, but when Sherlock tries to imagine himself kissing anyone, even John, who is so vital that Sherlock can't imagine living without him, all he really feels is an unpleasant combination of disinterest and revulsion. He knows about sex, of course. So much of crime hinges on issues of sex: a prime motivator. He's read manuals and been to shops and once, for the incredibly distasteful Experiment #3788:19, he watched a pornographic film, which involved a lot of moaning and writhing and proportions that looked highly unlikely. He assumes that John doesn't fit those proportions. Nevertheless, the idea of doing something like... putting his tongue in John's mouth, for example - )

He glares at his tea. It is a cup of tea, and yet it is failing to solve everything.

(Experiment #2384:21: find out what the hell is going on in this flat.)

* * *

Sherlock doesn't do things without purpose.

This is not a lie, even if this morning he knocks on John's door without having decided ahead of time what he is going to say, with a cup of tea as his only peace offering.

"Good morning."

John looks at him blearily, wiping his eyes. "Sherlock? It's - it's five-thirty, what are you doing?"

"I brought you tea."

"It's five-thirty."

"I put sugar in it."

"All right, all right." John sits up, leaning over to turn on his bedside lamp. He sleeps in cotton pyjamas with vertical blue stripes and lapels, and invariably wears them to bed, no matter how little time he'll actually be wearing them - even on the nights when Sherlock keeps him up until five and he'll have to be awake at seven to get ready to go in to the clinic (Sherlock sleeps in his clothes half the time, although he cannot sleep without his bathrobe and never has been able). "Tea. Thanks." He reaches for it.

"I believe we had a misunderstanding last night."

"A misunderstanding?"

"Yes."

John looks as if he's going to say something, but instead he blows on his tea a little and takes a small sip, watching Sherlock over the rim of the cup.

"I don't want to have sex with you."

John chokes on his tea. "Yeah, you said that when we met. I mean, not in so many words, but - "

Sherlock thins his lips. "But you are valuable to me, and I want you to stay here. Very much. So if there's no other alternative, if it's that important to you and if it doesn't take very long and you don't want to do it every bloody night-"

John is staring at him in something akin to horror mixed with a healthy dose of disbelief. His mouth is open. "Are you - are you serious?"

"Extraordinarily. I know the mechanics, and I would be willing to engage in coitus if it - close your mouth, I'm not going to put something in it right now."

John lets out a hysterical-sounding laugh. "Look, no, no, seriously. Oh, my God." He rubs his face with one hand. "God. It's five-thirty. Look, I do like you, I like you a lot more than I should if I were really sane. I'm not going to force you to have sex with me just to keep me here."

"You aren't forcing me to do anything," Sherlock says, irritated.

"No, right, of course not. Look - I don't need to be bribed, how's that? I mean, you're not really a thoughtful person, but I've done better since I moved in here." He looks down at his tea and then up again at Sherlock, a bit more seriously. "I really appreciate that. But I really, really don't want to have sex with you. Especially not when you talk about it that way."

"You don't."

"No. Look, can we talk about this in the morning?"

"It's morning."

"Please go away. I've got two more hours of sleep left and a dreadful day coming up. We can talk about how we're not going to have sex when I get home from work."

"I suppose so." Sherlock frowns at him again, ignoring the sense of relief. It's all very well to tell John he's willing to shag him, but the idea of actually doing it gives him, as much as he refuses to admit it, gives him an uncomfortable hollow feeling at the bottom of his stomach similar to the sensation he gets after he takes a nicotine patch when he hasn't eaten for three days.

"OK. I'll finish my tea, then."

Sherlock gets halfway out the door before he pauses and looks back at John, his long fingers curled around the side, smiling his pale smile. "My work hasn't taken all my time lately. I wouldn't mind being married to you as well, if there won't be any copulation."

He leaves John coughing tea.

(Experiment #2384:21: Results: Communication with flatmate and concurrent nonverbal data reveal that flatmate is amenable to continued cohabitation _sans_ shagging. He isn't leaving.)

(Sherlock sits on his bed with his fingers threaded, hands clasped between his knees. John isn't leaving. Neither the threat of Sarah nor the unpleasant question of sex has chased him off, which means that Sherlock can continue to drag him along to Scotland Yard, and John can continue to write sensational nonsense on his silly blog, and Sherlock and his thousands of Experiments won't be the sole occupants of the flat.

The queer, unsettling feeling that perhaps John is more than either flatmate or friend to him is lingering in the back of his mind, but he refuses to think about it. That bridge can be crossed when he comes to it.)

Suddenly his mobile chirps, and he grudgingly unfolds himself to look at it.

_Have case for you. Bring disinfectant and Dr. Watson._

_MH_

Sherlock gets to his feet, clasping his hands behind his back, and grins at nothing in particular. Even dream-Mycroft has been thwarted.

Case open.

[end]


End file.
